Big Shot met up with good-friend-of-the-magazine Moby (who readers will recall served as the guest editor for our first anniversary issue) in Soho earlier this week, and we found out that he’s been holed up in his studio, making music as if his life depended on it and DJing quite a bit (that part we already knew). Moby, who penned a lil’ story in Issue 25 (more on that at a later date), is readying the release of his new DJ mix, Last Night Remixed, which features the acclaimed electronic music pioneer mixing up remixes of tracks from his most recent album, Last Night. In this exclusive clip, Moby explains why the time was right to do a mix CD.
Big Shot Magazine
BSTV: Producer Machine Discusses His New Remix/Mashup Series
Famed producer/remixer Machine (Lamb of God, Every Time I Die) is a diehard electronic music fan. On this clip, Machine, who is profiled in Big Shot‘s Issue 24, discusses his new remix/mashup series running on friendsorenemies.com. It’s so new the series doesn’t even have a name yet!
The Faint Grace the Cover of Big Shot’s Issue 23
The Faint grace the cover of BS23. Big Shot traveled to the band’s studio in Omaha and got up close and personal with the dance-punk outfit. Tomorrow the band will release its long-awaited Fasciinatiion, which marks their first endeavor on their own label, blank.wav. Issue 23 also features interviews with Tricky, Trouble & Bass, Hercules & Love Affair, Pink Skull, and The Black Ghosts. We also brought together Moby and Ryuichi Sakamoto for an exclusive one-on-one conversation and talked to elusive drum ‘n’ bass producer Calibre about his new album, Overflow. French electro-pop starlet Yelle penned a tour diary and we found out why Róisín isn’t intersted in working with Timbaland or Pharrell. Don’t miss out on the fun. Subscribe now and get two free CDs!
Exclusive: Portishead Talk New Album, Tour & Coachella
Big Shot has spoken exclusively to Portishead about their new album, Third, which will be released next month. The fourth release from the Bristol based trip-hop pioneers (their third studio album, overall) is a less claustrophobic body of work that sees Beth Gibbons utilize the softer vocal style she perfected with her solo album that perforated their ten-year absence from the music industry. Geoff Barrows and Adrian Utley sat down with us to talk through the eleven-track release that steers away from their previous inclination for samples and ventures into a broader sonic pastiche.
The three-piece act will be joined by a similar lineup of musicians to those who have played with them in the past; however, DJ Andy Smith is not appearing at the live dates. Barrows explains that this is due to the new processes the band utilized. “As we haven’t used many samples with Third, the live shows are more about a band. We all swap around instruments. When the lights go out between songs, we are madly running around trying to prepare for the next one. Swapping snare drums, things like that.”
Barrows is excited by the prospect of coming to the US to play at Coachella. “We’ve never done it before, and yes it’s quite funny that The Verve are the other headliners,” he says. “When they split we had to step into their shoes and fill a number of festival slots they had been booked for. So now, although we never went away really, we are going to play Coachella at the same time as them.’
Portishead have indeed never really gone away. They took a well-earned break after a massive promotional tour for second self-titled album and began recording again in 2004 in Sydney. According to Barrows, the tapes were “okay,” but not considered good enough by the band to be classed as new Portishead material. So it came to pass that now, in 2008, the British band who captured the hearts of millions worldwide in the 1990s, arrive back in a music industry that has changed but will surely welcome them with open arms.
A full length exclusive interview with Barrows and Utley will feature in Issue 23 of Big Shot, where the band discuss their live album, PNYC, the influence of Bristol on their music, the changes in the technology between albums, and the plethora of fan made videos that have cropped up on the Web. OGW